


In the Center of the Mechanism

by GretchenSinister



Series: GretchenSinister's Second Blacksand Week [6]
Category: Rise of the Guardians (2012)
Genre: 8000 Blacksand AUs, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:13:30
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23124553
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GretchenSinister/pseuds/GretchenSinister
Summary: My fill for Day 5, Crossing the Streams. A brief exploration into whentheoceanmetsky’s Dreameater AU.The Guardians need a different sort of power in the challenge they now face, and they must ask the Dreameater and Fearspinner for aid. Those beings meet Jack for the first time.
Relationships: Pitch Black/Sanderson Mansnoozie
Series: GretchenSinister's Second Blacksand Week [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1660444
Kudos: 7
Collections: Blacksand Short Fics





	In the Center of the Mechanism

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted on Tumblr on 11/15/2013.

Between the mortal world and all elsewheres, there were negotiations to be made, boundaries to be stabilized, gates to open, borders to close. The Guardians undertook these tasks willingly, knowing that, with all the power of belief they held within them, they were among the few who had the strength to seal or to break open, to make their workings last.

This was how they protected the world. It was an awesome responsibility, requiring equally awesome strength, but in most cases the Guardians could meet every challenge with the united face of their triad, and, now, their tetrad.

In most cases.

Sometimes, the configuration of the stars would be unfavorable, the breach would be a determined attack and not an accidental universal overlap, or some other unusual circumstance would hinder the Guardians in what they had to do. And one of those times was fast approaching.

“What are we going to do?” Jack asked the others. “Are you sure that my power added to yours won’t tip the balance in our favor? I mean, this is the first breach I’ve seen that you’ve been really worried about. Wouldn’t it make more sense to assume that since I’m here now, we’d be more than a match for whatever wouldn’t want us to seal it?”

Tooth shook her head. “It’s not the amount of magical intervention we need. It’s the _type_.”

North nodded in agreement. “We need aid from those who think differently. Outside help from others who can do things like we do, but…hmm…at a slant, let us say.”

“Well, who? I thought there weren’t others like us.”

“They’re not like us,” Bunny said. “North’s talking about the Dreameater and the Fearspinner, Jack. We’re going to have to go talk to them and ask them for help.”

“Aren’t they enemies?”

“Not very often,” Tooth replied. “And even then, you can usually find them together.”

* * *

Meeting the Dreameater and the Fearspinner and asking them for help was nothing like what Jack had expected. For one thing, to get to them, the Guardians had needed to enter one of the border worlds which he had thought weren’t supposed to be so close to Earth under any circumstances.

“Good, they are letting us in,” North had said, much more softly than usual as they stepped from the icy terrain of the pole onto a golden beach under a rich purple sky.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” Bunny replied.

Tooth hushed them both, and flew off towards a large structure of shifting sand in the distance, a castle continually dissolving and reforming itself. The others followed over the dunes as fast as they could.

A gate was open for them once they reached the castle, which, again, North chose to interpret as a positive sign. As they walked through halls leading them ever farther in, Jack could not help but stare. The walls glimmered and glowed dimly, yet not steadily, and under the slowly shifting patterns of light and shadow he thought he saw the faces of the other Guardians shift slightly, never enough to make them unrecognizable, but enough so that their features were pushed into expressions he had never seen them wear before. Their silence as they journeyed further in did not help his growing sense of unease, and he broke it in the hope that this would provide some comfort.

“Um, guys? I’m seeing…”

“Things,” Tooth completed his sentence. “Just things. Try not to be too specific here, Jack. They don’t like it.”

After what might have been minutes or hours, they arrived in a large, circular room that was open to the starry sky above. The floor was divided into eight—no, twelve—no, nine—no, sixteen—wedges, each inlaid with a gold-on-gold design that, together, seemed to Jack to represent some sort of zodiac, though not one that he had ever seen before. The light from the walls was dimmer here than ever, though the sand that they were made of glittered black and gold in the faint light even more. The effect was bewildering, which perhaps was why he only belatedly became aware of the figures in the center of the room, to which the other Guardians offered shallow bows of greeting. Jack followed their lead, and when he looked up again he saw that they must have been given permission to approach.

As they did, Jack sorted out from the shifting light tendrils of black and gold sand that wove through the air of the room, twining over and around each other in a way Jack thought maybe he shouldn’t watch. These ribbons of sand he traced back to the heads of the two figures in the center of the room, who reclined on a large, deep violet pillow. He tried to look at them, but his eyes slid away from them still, and he noticed instead that the only other objects in the room were four other violet pillows arranged before the other, and a golden hookah at its corner.

The Guardians took their seats on the smaller pillows, and from this perspective, Jack was finally able to—allowed to?—clearly see the figures on the pillow. One was tall and thin, wearing a long black robe, with black hair that glimmered gold at his temples and when it caught the light. His skin was gray and he had darkly shadowed eyes, the whites of which were black. His irises were gold and lacked pupils, but Jack was under no impression that he could not see. His hands, wrists, and neck were covered by jewelry of interlocking golden rings, which seemed to Jack to have been made out of the same material as the castle.

The other, short and stout, wore a golden suit that looked seamless thanks to the way the fabric was formed into large, sweeping swirls. The suit was completed by a thick collar of some black fur of which each hair was tipped with gold. The other’s skin was gold as his suit, though it was darker and rosier about his eyes, which shared the coloring of his companion’s. His golden hair grew flame-like above his head, streaked with black. For moments upon looking at him and the tall one, Jack couldn’t figure out where his hands were.

The tall one was lying down on his side, facing the Guardians, while the small one sat, leaning against his waist, arms spread. When Jack did figure out where the small one’s hands were, he felt vaguely embarrassed. The small one’s elbow-length black gloves had caused his arms to blend into the tall one’s black robes, as one hand rested possessively on his shoulders and one hand curled lightly and yet more possessively around his rear.

“Dreameater,” North said, and the small one nodded. “Fearspinner.”

Jack realized he had been placing the wrong name with each being.

“Greetings, Guardians,” the tall one said in a voice like wind turned newly cold. “To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?”

“We are here to talk,” North said.

The Fearspinner and the Dreameater looked into each other’s eyes for a long moment. When they turned back to the Guardians, they both nodded in sync. “Very well,” the Fearspinner said.

At that moment, Jack fully expected North to begin to speak of the looming threat to Earth, but instead Bunny began to talk. He gave an eloquent speech on hope, new beginnings, and new life. Jack was impressed, but wasn’t sure why this was part of the visit. When Bunny finished, Tooth spoke of memory and time itself, and Jack began to feel worried when, as her speech went on, most of what she was saying began to go over his head. Was he going to have to talk too? Like _that_? About his own center? Wouldn’t they have warned him if that was the case?

North followed Tooth, and his speech on wonder, though similar in mood to the one he had given Jack as he had explained what a center meant to a Guardian, was vastly more complex, as intricate as any of the ancient and magic-heavy clockwork toys that crowded his workroom, flotsam from a stranger age.

When he finished, a small smile had formed on the Dreameater’s face, while the Fearspinner looked grim as he had since the Guardians had arrived. The Dreameater leaned over to whisper in the Fearspinner’s ear. He nodded, and both he and the Dreameater fixed their gazes on Jack.

“Will the new one speak?” the Fearspinner asked.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jack saw North start in surprise. “As such a new Guardian, Jack has not the knowledge we have of our centers…” he broke off as the Fearspinner frowned.

The Dreameater whispered something in his ear again.

“So be it,” the Fearspinner said. “If the boy does not know how to speak of joy, it makes no difference to the Dreameater and me. Words are merely a pinhole to drain the ocean of meaning. We will discover what is in the boy’s heart in our own way.”

Jack saw Tooth’s eyes widen an instant before black and gold sands filled his eyes, nose, mouth, and ears. He felt as though he was going to smother, but in moments, the sensation disappeared, replaced by all those he ever knew that he associated with fun, joy, exhilaration, ecstasy. All conscious thought was blasted away.

When he woke, he was lying on the floor, surrounded by the other Guardians, their faces drawn and worried. Behind them, he could see the Dreameater and Fearspinner passing a small amount of black and gold sand from one’s hands to the other’s, their heads bent cheek to cheek so they could whisper in each other’s ears.

“Jack, you all right?” asked Bunny, and Jack nodded weakly. He felt exhausted, and wasn’t sure if he could stand, but other than that, actually quite well.

“Guardians,” the Fearspinner said, “we are intrigued to find that your world has found another of the pieces of its essential soul. Clearly it is not time for it to end yet. We will help you preserve it. Go back to your homes. Expect us soon.”

North carried Jack out of the castle, Bunny and Tooth following close behind. As soon as they cleared the gate, Bunny took them to the Warren with one of his tunnels. “No use trying to keep them from getting where they want to be anyway,” he muttered.

Under the bright sunlight and amidst the mostly ordinary green grass and smell of earth, all the Guardians breathed easier. North propped Jack up against a stone and sat back on his heels.

“I’ll be okay. Really,” Jack said, looking up at the others. “But I think I _will_ prepare a speech next time.”

“Jack, I’m so sorry. We didn’t think that was going to happen.” Tooth settled by him, taking his hand.

“At least we got their help, right?” Jack smiled weakly, and the others nodded. “But what…what are they, really?”

“Lovers,” said North.

“Ancient,” said Tooth.

“Neutral,” said Bunny.

“This is not their world,” explained North. “They have seen theirs end. Just as we will see ours end, someday. Perhaps we will understand them better then.”

“But that’s not going to happen just yet,” said Bunny.

“We’ve got plenty of time.” Tooth squeezed his hand, and Jack remembered the vast and inhuman scale of her understanding revealed in her speech earlier. He nodded, squeezing her hand back, and wondered what ‘plenty of time’ meant to an immortal.

**Author's Note:**

> Comments from Tumblr:
> 
> emeraldembers reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> Oh I like this. I like how other they are - and I love the element of the Guardians being both used to and uncomfortable with interacting with them. The little touches like “Aren’t they enemies?” “Sometimes, and even then they’re usually together” and “They don’t really like names” are marvellous because they build up so much of a world so quickly. And on a shallow note, I completely love how you describe the colour scheme XD, it’s a perfection conversion of the fanart to fic.
> 
> Oh scary amoral babes, how I love you so <3.
> 
> whentheoceanmetsky reblogged this from gretchensinister and added:  
> oh my god i just i have no words im just internally flailing to the howl of a thousand demons screeching it was...everything i’d ever want and THANK YOU SO MUCH
> 
> andomfgmighty’spitcture
> 
> also bless you and bless golden hookahs #WHEN YOU MENTIONED JACK NOT SEEING HIS HANDS I WAS LIKE #NO #SHE DIDN'T #THEN #SHE DID #AND I MAY HAVE LAUGHED A LOT


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